


Animal

by WindwiseWords



Series: Clone Culture [7]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Feral Behavior, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Injury, Kamino, Medical, Military Ranks, Muzzles, Order 66, Order 66 Failed, Panic Attacks, Post-Order 66, Restraints, Separation Anxiety, Separations, Violence, blame, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 00:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14092611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindwiseWords/pseuds/WindwiseWords
Summary: Plo Koon realizes what he forgot during his days on Coruscant taming the unrest.





	Animal

Led like an animal, muzzled and chained and all but unable to move, his Wolffe shuffled in. Plo Koon lost track of where exactly his Commander had been in the chaos of the failed Order 66, pushed to the side of his mind while he dealt with Coruscant. Now that the order was restored to the senate and various other portions of government, Plo Koon found himself turning to address his Commander to call a ship.

Wolffe was not there. Wolffe was on Kamino, and with that realization Plo rushed to the planet so hard he skidded in on his landing and was out before the engines shut down. He didn’t expect forty guns to train on him instantly, but raised his hands and approached the nearest clone. A simple demand, but one that bothered the clone immensely.

“Where is my Commander? Where is Wolffe?” Plo’s voice neared a shout, over the rain that soaked him to the core. It would dry his skin out, the oxygen too much, but he ignored it to stare down the clone.

The clone didn’t flinch, just cocked his head and nudged the muzzle of the blaster into his chest before raising his com to call whoever took charge. To Plo’s disappointment it was not Wolffe, Commander Cody answering the call.

“Plo Koon is on the list.”

What list that was, Plo numbly disregarded. “Take me to Wolffe.” He demanded again. “I’m not leaving without seeing he is alright.”

The clones’ conversation went quiet, and Cody finally agreed. “Fine, take him to lockup.”

The call cut off and the clone lowered his blaster, reaching out a hand. “Sabers please, sir. The gauntlet too.” Plo stripped them off, handing them over before going for the ritual claw covers. “You can keep those, sir. Just in case.”

Just in case a clone decided to step out of line, challenge the new order set forth by his brothers. It happened frequently in this new era of freedom, but they were quickly set in place.

 

And so was Wolffe, but for different reasoning. Flanked by shock prod troopers, the Commander tracked everything in a feral state that Plo only saw once: Sinker and Boost were shot, and a purely animal light took to the good remaining eye of his commander. He’d heard rumors of feral clones, ones mixed with predatory creatures, and his mind went to that as he watched his commander tear apart the enemy with his knives and teeth alone.

Genetic testing proved he was simply a ‘logic clone,’ with improved facets of logic circles and gates. He could think more quickly; that scar took away some impulse control centers of his brain, along with his eye.

This animal before him was his Wolffe, gone to the separation disease. They didn’t understand it, a total break to psychosis and either distraught panic or ferality.

His troopers tended toward ferality.

Plo waved the troopers away, those with hold of Wolffe’s bonds in a four-way restraint hesitating before complying. The Jedi wanted to risk his hide, they’d let him. Stripped to only his briefs, Wolffe showed no hesitation and charged as soon as they made eye contact.

The Force showed his betrayed feelings, the lancing hurt that stabbed his mind, the blackness in his heart where his brothers’ faces should’ve lain. ‘Where are my brothers? Where were you?’

“I’m not sure where your brothers are, Wolffe, but I am here to help you find them.” Plo managed to get out before nearly 230 pounds* of trooper shoulder-checked him. He slid, boots scraping along the floor as he stopped him with a hard grip to his shoulders. Plo was a deal taller than his commander, towering over the 6 foot 1 that Wolffe had, but just about the same weight class. The Force helped him stop the inertia of the slam, doing nothing to block the bruising to his entire sternum.

“I did not take them away, Wolffe, you were here for updates to your cybernetic eye. We will find them, and you will have your brothers back.” Plo stated calmly, ignoring the pain as Wolffe managed to get his nails into his thick hide, twisting his body in ways that made Plo’s head spin. Wolffe only snarled, a common sound on the ship that the Wolfpack adopted to keep up their ‘animal’ facade.

Wolffe managed to get a shoulder in Plo’s armpit, usurping the control over him and dashing them both to the floor. If he was free, he’d have tried to kill Plo. There was intent in every move, though the tell-tale patch over his head ensured Plo that his efforts were not in vain.

“Commander!” Plo tried to be strict, but his voice broke with the pain. His beloved clone attacking him so viciously; Plo stopped fighting his attacks, simply defending his face. The bonds on Wolffe were no match for his skill, able to take down anything around his size without his hands. He practiced that, Plo had taught him how, and now he used it to go for Plo’s weakest spot: that mask.

Wolffe was out for death, revenge, a hateful kind of power. He blamed Plo for not stopping this, the reverent light he held the Jedi in shadowed by his failures.

He wasn’t wrong, Plo realized, a lapse in response time by the realization letting Wolffe get a nudge powerful enough to disconnect the mask’s seal to his face. Reality slammed into him, the burning and acrid taste of his own flesh reacting to oxygen, immediate feelings of suffocation and the horrible gurgling gasps and strained pants that came with it.

The room sprang into action, not about to let a Jedi death be on their own heads, but Wolffe reacted first.

“Kriff, General!” Wolffe snapped out immediately upon realization the sounds were a suffocating Kel Dor. He’d heard it few times on the battlefield and could pick it out of any blaster fire or explosions for a mile around. He flipped himself over and managed to get the mask against Plo’s face again, then snapped an order at a brother to help. The clones abandoned their weapons to come to the Jedi’s aid.

Plo began to see white, the mask there but lethal oxygen trickling in around the edges. He no longer felt the chemical burn it caused, and the last thing he saw were bicolored eyes worriedly looking into his.

 

The first thing he saw were the same eyes, sitting on the side of a cot. Wolffe’s face was obscured by that muzzle, lest he go feral again, but over that there was an airtight suit. “General? General, please… I can’t lose you too…” Wolffe whispered, not quite realizing the Jedi was awake. “I’m sorry, General Plo! I didn’t mean it. I thought… I blamed you. That, this whole thing isn’t your fault... The clone wars weren’t, our slavery wasn’t, and my vod missing…” The words became strained; Wolffe was crying without tears.

Plo said nothing, just reaching to rest a hand on Wolffe’s side. Wolffe jolted like he’d been stung by an insect, then threw himself over Plo and snapped his head around. This time no attacks came, only the soft rumbling deep in the chest of a very, very angry man. Plo’s other hand came up to his chest, fingers splayed over the environment suit, and Wolffe realized that it was his General.

“I am alright.” Plo rasped, throat raw from the burning air. Whatever air they were in now, he could breathe though it contained no Dorin Gas. He’d have to treat himself later with the precious resource.

“General… Sir…” Wolffe looked for words, never good with them and even worse after his accident. He recalled the time that this happened to Plo before, a lot shorter an exposure in a much less oxygen rich environment. “S-Sir you are not fine. I can read scans.” And with that he turned a screen toward Plo. Vitals, in the yellow, and despite moving his hands, he found the oxygen toxicity had paralyzed his body for the time being. “I did this… Not you, I did this. All if it.”

“Nonsense.” Plo gasped, trying to get his body to respond but gentle warm hands touched cool shoulders, pushing him down with care. “You were mentally unstable.”

“I still am. I’ve bitten three brothers, they had to put the mask back on.” Wolffe couldn’t look him in the eye, goggles off to make him the most comfortable in the room. A decompression chamber for the deep-sea diving troopers just in case they didn’t acclimate right.

A soft familiar beep went off, Wolffe’s alerts for Mess Hall. The time he was mandated to spend not working. Wolffe responded, reaching for a side table with a mess of mush in a bowl, neatly covered by plastic. He opened it and grimaced.

“I’ll make this right, sir. I’ll take care of you until you are better, just like you did me.”

Plo’s eyes softened. “There is no repayment needed, Wolffe. I did that for you because I wanted to.”

“Well I want to do this. I must do this, General, I… I can’t be useless anymore. I can’t go attacking and lashing out…” Broken words again, this feral episode triggering some of the old issues with the injury. Incomplete thoughts, broken logic gates, inability to turn off his aggression; Plo worried for a moment the Kaminoans would take him away, then realized there were no more Kaminoans to do so. The traitors had all been executed, he’d seen the funeral pyre on the far landing deck in the rain.

Morbid, but needed.

A spoonful of some kind of mush was offered to him, treated with speckles of some kind of supplement powder. Trooper cooking at its finest, but Plo knew well this was some fruit and that Wolffe put the materials he’d need in the goo to make him heal faster. Bacta wasn’t an option for internal use, and the bacta tanks were being used to treat troopers pouring in with various injuries from their masters and civilians rejecting their staked claim to freedom.

Plo accepted a spoonful, swallowing obediently despite the pain. Wolffe didn’t miss a beat, noticing the pained click that followed. He spoke not a word of Plo’s mother tongue, but knew well the different small sounds Plo used to communicate his emotions. Without facial muscles to show emotions, he relied on those sounds.

Wolffe set the bowl down and offered him a drink of something horribly bitter, eyes apologetic. “It’ll numb up your throat… The ordinance troopers use it after a bad explosion.” They had rasping voices, all from years of damage to soft tissues. Some had to be put on liquid diet, unable to swallow hard food or even mush. Plo drank obediently, the throbbing soreness down to a tolerable ache immediately.

Silence followed by soft sounds of eating continued for an hour. Plo found swallowing a chore, and his dutiful commander offered him a fruit juice as soon as he saw struggling. Kel Dor could not choke exactly, but the discomfort of food stuck in a throat wasn’t pleasant.

Wolffe read him like a book, but Plo struggled to understand. “Wolffe… You are back to yourself. If not aggressively tuned.”

Wolffe went silent. “I’ll regain control, sir.”

“That is not what I meant, Commander. What made you react?”

Again silence, more fruit paste, Wolffe avoiding the answer. Plo eventually clicked his palates closed, and refused to allow more food in. Wolffe gave him an irritated stare and sighed.

“That horrible gasping you make. When your mask is off… It clicked that I caused it.” He choked up instantly and his hands began to shake. “I hurt you, so badly, you could have died sir! You blacked out and I couldn’t get you to respond, they had to shock me off you and… And…” A shuttering gasp. The fruit was set down, and Wolffe lay over Plo, forehead of the helmet on his chest gently.

Plo wrapped his arms around his broken soldier and shushed him with soft click-whistles he’d offer any grieving Kel Dor. “I will be alright, Wolffe. It will all be alright.” The shaking increased, and Plo knew he had to push him just a bit more. “I do not blame you for your actions. If anything, you were right. Your thoughts… I should have come for my men instantly.” The wolf-painted troopers in grey or rust-red. Wolffe finally let out a sob, tucked close to the chest of the one he trusted most. “I let you down, Wolffe, after I promised I would not. I am troubled by my failures, as you are troubled by yours.”

Wolffe nodded and clutched at the Kel Dor’s chest, seeking the comfort Plo witnessed him ask for from only brothers. Only Sinker, twice, though he knew others provided it. Plo rested his hands weakly on those shoulders he set so much pressure on.

They stayed like that for a long time, Wolffe eventually falling asleep. Plo twitched his tusks as a medic came in to change the air in the suit tanks, and offer Plo his mask. “We don’t have the resources to keep the room up for much longer. We’re going to start a slow change.”

Plo nodded and let him put the mask on, Wolffe jolting awake and only stopping his aggression when Plo scruffed him like a young animal. “Enough, Wolffe. He is your brother.” That was enough to get Wolffe to assist with the mask, and as the room filtered to oxygen, he pulled the helmet of the suit off to rest against Plo again.

“Will you really help me find them, sir?” A quiet and scared Wolffe. He was acting like a ‘scared, pathetic Shiny’ as Warthog would put it. “What if they’re gone… Rex left. What if they left too?” Left him all alone.

“I highly doubt they would leave without you, Wolffe. I will scour the universe to find your brothers, and I will bring the 104th together again. You will lead them. Wolffe. You will be the commander that you were meant to be, not the one I stifled you into.” Plo tapped the chin of the distraught clone, and a spark of determination lit in those eyes.

Wolffe got up, rubbing his face of any signs of tears, and helped Plo get his goggles on. He then packed the rest of the fruit mush into a waiting cup with a straw that fit his mask adapter. “I heard there’s some of the 104th on Coruscant, hiding in the lower levels. They’re keeping us prisoner, General.” He touched the muzzle on his face, then with a powerful twist ripped it off. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Nor will I, Wolffe. The council is convinced you all are dangerous. I think you are, because of their inability to see a change. It is time for the Clones to lead themselves.”

Wolffe glanced over and frowned. “Sir, I still swear my loyalty to you. I never liked the GAR, and I never will, but I fought for you, General Plo Koon.” And with that Wolffe drew into a salute.

“What are your orders, sir?”

**Author's Note:**

> Whoo! So I got a bunch of Kudos all at once this morning and got motivated :D A follow up to "What Never Was"


End file.
